


things that go bump in the night

by nessismore



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Creepy, F/M, First Meetings, Halloween, Haunted Houses, at least I think it's a little creepy, darcystevemonth, tags are the hardest part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4930633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/pseuds/nessismore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Darcy's friends bail on their plans to go to a haunted house, Darcy decides to go alone. After living through two alien attacks, a little thing like a haunted house isn't going to scare her...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that go bump in the night

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Darcy/Steve Month Promptathon ([here]()), based on this prompt: _I showed up to this haunted house alone because I thought I wouldn’t be scared but now I am and I might be holding your hand_.
> 
> There's already a really great fill by GlynnisIsta8 (read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4914295), it's fab), but I just couldn't resist. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (also huge thanks to katertots and blackestglass for listening me whine all through writing this--you guys rock!)

Darcy wasn’t going to let her friends ruin her night. They’d been planning this haunted house for weeks, and truthfully, she needed a thrill these days. Finishing her degree was all fine and great and useful, but after saving the world, 8:00 AM classes (damn her for not getting those pre-reqs out of the way as a freshman), study groups, and tepid dates just weren’t cutting it.

 

And after Thor, college boys were just not doing it for her. Not that she was pining after him or anything, but that body…well, damn. 

 

So she’d been looking forward to going out with friends, a group of older students who’d bonded by virtue of feeling _old_ at 23+, and getting her jollies on getting scared by ridiculously costumed people who lived for that shit. But Yasmine had to cover an emergency shift at work, and Mila had been iffy about going anyway and chickened out, Patrice remembered a 20-page paper that she hadn’t done and was due the next day, and so it went…

 

So Darcy was going solo. That was fine. When Mila asked if she’d be scared, Darcy fought not to scoff. Fear was for people who hadn’t lived through alien attacks. 

Of course, that was before the drive that took her well past the city limits and into the middle of nowhere. As traffic petered out, so did lights. And cell phone reception. All she could see for miles was fields.

 

And then all she could see was fields and _rain_. Great.

 

It was like something out of a horror movie. Any minute now, she expected a pasty faced child to come appear out of the fields.

 

“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “This is just setting the tone. No one is actually going to get murdered by a bunch of creepy ass children.”

 

She eventually found the place, but that didn’t serve to make her feel any better. The place was ramshackle and truth be told, kind of sketchy. Yes, this place wasn’t a permanent structure and it didn’t make sense to build an actual parking lot and box office, but she was still feeling leery as she pulled into a muddy parking space and walked up to the lean-to box office. Even here, the lighting was dim and kind of eerie. There was a sign above the ticket “window” — No cameras, no lighters, no weapons of any kind—and that only heightened her sense of apprehension. No weapons meant no taser, and that somehow made her feel a little bit naked.

 

That also meant she had to trudge back to the car and leave her taser in the glove compartment.

 

At least it stopped raining.

 

The haunted house was actually three different attractions — a hay ride (no thanks), a haunted asylum, and your standard haunted house. Darcy bought a ticket for the latter two—sure she’d been freaking herself out over the past forty-five minutes, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t actually _scared_. That would be ridiculous.

 

On that thought, she took a resolute step towards the main haunted house, a building that looked like a run down warehouse—and promptly slipped in the mud. Preparing herself for a face full of mud, she consoled herself with the fact that at least there wasn’t anybody she _knew_ here. 

 

The mud face mask never came. Strong arms wrapped around her, hauling her up and saving her dignity. The arms, she noticed, were bare and nicely muscled. She managed to not be creepy and give those arms a squeeze. Barely.

 

When he steadied on her feet, she looked up. And wow, that face definitely matched the promise of those arms. She did a mental check to make sure her jaw wasn’t dropped and that she wasn’t drooling. Even in the dim light, she could tell he was gorgeous.

 

Like Thor, he was blonde, blue-eyed, and built. But she’d never wanted to climb Thor like a tree. Okay, so maybe she had for like _half_ a second after he made it clear he wasn’t actually a mental asylum escapee and before he made it clear he was into Jane, but still. This guy was hot.

 

And, apparently, speaking.

 

“What?” she said, shaking off her little daze.

 

“I asked if you were okay,” he said with a small smile. And wow. Just wow.

 

“Okay. Yeah. I mean, Yeah, I’m okay.” What was even coming out of her mouth? Before she could make an even bigger fool of herself, someone called out, “Steve!” and hot guy turned.

 

Of course hot guy had hot friends. Hot friends who kind of looked like bros, except for the red haired woman who somehow looked bored and amused at the same time. She was gorgeous, and she was probably hot Steve’s girlfriend. Which was fine, because he was probably a bro, too, and Darcy didn’t do bros. 

 

“Stop flirting and get over here,” one of his friends said. Darcy hurriedly extricated herself from his arms. 

 

“Well. Thanks for not letting me eat dirt,” she said cheerfully. Yeah, she definitely needed to get out of there. She couldn’t resist the pat to his bicep as she walked away. “See you around.”

 

She turned on her heel and headed towards the main haunted house. Because of the rain, it wasn’t crowded. In fact, other than hot Steve’s group and her, there weren’t many people milling around, and the line for the main haunted house wasn’t very long. They were staggering groups’ entrances, probably so haunted house cast members could get set.

 

And really, when she thought of it like that, it wasn’t really all that scary. They were just people in costumes. People in costumes who lurked behind things and jumped out at you. No big deal.

 

That thought was hard to hold on to as she waited in the dark, damp chill. By herself. Listening to people shriek—and in one memorable instance, shout “holy fuck, get that thing off me.” Yeah, that was reassuring. 

 

“Remember,” she whispered to herself. “They’re not allowed to touch you. They’re not allowed to touch you. They’re not allowed to touch you.”

 

“But who knows who’s touching who in the dark?” a voice asked behind her. She let out a startled shriek. Damn it. Of course hot Steve’s party was right behind her. The one who spoke was short, stocky and compact. He was also smirking. It made her want to hit him, but also, he looked oddly familiar.

 

“Clint,” Steve said warningly, but Clint just smiled. 

 

“I’m just saying,” Clint went on, “I’d prefer them touching me to whatever else might be in there. Cobwebs, spiders, snakes…I mean we are in the middle of nowhere.”

 

Yeah, that got a reaction out of Darcy. She let out an involuntary shiver, because that did freak her out. Trying to change the subject, Darcy asked,  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

 

Clint smiled. “I just have one of those faces.”

 

“You mean punchable?” Darcy shot back, making the red-haired woman snort.

 

“You have no idea,” she said to Darcy in commiseration.

 

 They got to the front of the line.

 

The employee asked, “You guys together?”

 

“No,” Darcy answered emphatically, making Clint and the other man in the group chuckle. He was dark eyed and dark haired with a jovial smile that invited her to smile back. She scowled instead.

 

“In you go, missy,” the employee said, and she was too relieved to be escaping hot Steve and his band of bros to take exception to being called missy.

 

“We’ll be right behind you,” the dark haired one called. “At least, hopefully it’ll be us.” He let out a fair imitation of an evil laugh, which made Steve nudge him with a hissed, “Sam!” But Darcy could still hear the smile in his voice. With a sniff, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and plunged into darkness. There was just enough light to see where she was going, to what looked like a normal living room.

 

That wasn’t so scary. Until she heard a whisper of movement behind her. She whipped around, seeing no one. A maniacal giggle to the left. She caught a flash of white, and what looked like a child scampered across the doorway. Holding a knife.

 

She choked back a horrified laugh. The only way to go was through that doorway.  When all else failed, follow the murderous child.

 

The door lead to a hall lined with picture frames. That didn’t seem so scary, until she noticed the people in the picture frames all had some sort of horrific injury—a slit throat, and half burned face, one even held his head in his hands. And they moved. It freaked her out and she kind of loved it. 

 

She didn’t linger in the hall, however. Instead she went into the next room, a blood spattered kitchen. It looked like a woman was resting her head on the table. Darcy knew it couldn’t be that innocent. Stepping around the table, Darcy noticed the blood pooling around her head. She didn’t gasp. Until the woman’s eyes popped open and she reached out.

 

Darcy jumped back, thinking that the woman was reaching for her. Instead, she was pointing. Darcy turned, and in the doorway was the “child” from earlier, wearing a white pinafore splattered with red, a knife in her hands. The child smiled, unblinking, and she tilted her head as she raised a forefinger to her lips in a gesture for silence.

 

That was when she heard something behind her. Breathing. She could feel the person looming behind her, feel their breath on her hair, and she shrieked as she whirled around, her fist automatically coming up defensively.

 

“Whoa, there, slugger!”

 

And there was hot Steve, pulling her back and clutching her clenched fist in his hand. He tugged her further back, away from the undead woman, who’d stood up to scare her. Yeah, that had worked spectacularly, actually. “They’re not allowed to touch you, which means you’re not allowed to deck them.”

 

“It freaked me out,” Darcy said defensively.

 

“I think that was kinda the point,” hot Steve said. He patted her fist, still enclosed in his. “Why don’t you just stay with us,” he suggested, then, opening her fist, he wove his fingers through hers. When she raised her eyebrows at their joined hands, he added, “We can’t go around punching out the talent.”

 

Well, she was holding hot Steve’s hand, so…she wasn’t going to complain about it. She’d been ignoring murderous little girl, the dead lady, and hot Steve’s friend up until that point, but then she heard the red haired woman say, “You know, objectively, there are much neater ways to commit a murder like this.”

 

And damned if that didn’t freak her out the most.

 

—

 

Hot Steve held her hand throughout the rest of the haunted house, and if she were honest she was glad of it. She didn’t scare easy, but this place definitely hit all of her nightmare buttons. Facing down aliens? No problem. Walking through a haunted house murder scene, while listening to a crazy woman run down how she would have and could have done it neater, was something that would stay with her for a long time.

 

She didn’t know what was worse—the bedroom scene where a bloody teenager burst out of a closet, hurtling towards them and rasping “help me”—and that definitely made her scream and burrow into Steve—or Natasha saying, “more than three stab wounds really is inefficient—and that’s accounting for the girl’s age.” 

 

Natasha kept saying things like that, and something told Darcy that she wasn’t joking. Steve and Sam seemed to realize that Natasha was freaking Darcy out, so they tried to stay between them. Clint also realized that Natasha was freaking her out, and egged her on.

 

But that aside, walking through the haunted house with hot Steve and his friends was mostly comforting. When she jumped, he patted her hand reassuringly. When she shrieked, he tried to angle himself between Darcy and whatever scared her. All of them did that, actually, and she didn’t think they knew what they were doing.

 

She wondered if they were cops or military or something, because the “protect civilian from danger” thing seemed so instinctual. 

 

Either way, she had a surprisingly good time with them. They’d gone straight from the murder house to the haunted asylum. Hot Steve held her hand the whole time, even after they made their way out of the asylum and stood around talking about their favorite parts (they all agreed the little girl singing a slow version of “Ring Around the Rosie” in the asylum was creepy as hell).

 

Darcy checked her cell phone and winced at the time. “I’d better go. I’ve got class in the morning and it’s getting late. Thanks for letting me hang with you guys.”

 

Natasha nudged Steve. “This is the part where you ask for her number.” Darcy wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a whisper or not, but she definitely heard it.

 

“I—“ Darcy began, looking at their still joined hands, then looking away. 

 

“Uh…” Steve started. He didn’t let her hand go.

 

They both lapsed into silence.

 

Natasha let out a frustrated groan. “Do I have to do everything?” She moved around Steve so that she was facing Darcy directly. “Give him your number. He’s nice. I promise.”

 

Darcy wasn’t sure how to tell the woman that she wasn’t sure if she could take her word on the issue, seeing as they’d known each other all of two hours. And Darcy was equal parts in awe of and freaked the hell out by her.

 

Sam noticed and hooked his arm through Natasha’s. “Let’s give them a moment,” he said as he led her away.

 

“I’m Steve’s wingman!” Natasha protested.

 

Sam chuckled. “Not right now, you’re not.” 

 

“I don’t want him to mess it up!” But Sam kept leading her away. That left Darcy, hot Steve, and Clint, who was watching them with avid interest. He showed no signs of moving. “Barton, come on,” Sam called back. It took a nudge from Steve to finally get Clint moving.

 

Barton. She’d heard that name before. She’d think about it later, when hot Steve wasn’t staring at her and making her shiver.

 

“Should I apologize for my friends?” Steve asked sheepishly.

 

Darcy laughed. “You know, surprisingly I liked them.”

 

“It was really nice to meet you, Darcy.”

 

“It was really nice to meet you,” she said back. “So are you gonna ask me for my number?”

 

“Nah,” he said with a slow smile. “I’m gonna wait for you to ask me for mine.”  
  
---  
  
**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been to a haunted house since college, and while I started off watching walkthroughs on youtube last night, I freaked myself out. So I just went with things that would freak me the heck out. And what's creepier than the dead coming to life and murderous children?


End file.
